Richard Dowden is director of the Royal African Society and author of Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles published by Portobello Books (from www.guardian.co.uk/profile/richarddowden). The Royal African Society publishes the journal African Affairs through Oxford University Press.
Dowden, R. (2003). Our strange friends in the south. New Statesman, 132(4634).
For once, Africa’s leaders seem to be speaking for their people. They signed an African Union declaration demanding that war [in Iraq] only be declared with the UN’s blessing.
"It is for Tony Blair, however, that the aid agencies reserve their real anger. His public claim to have been running a humanitarian campaign in Iraq, while doing little
of the sort, could have devastating consequences all over the world for their work. It has been well rehearsed that having the military hand out aid endangers
civilians and aid workers alike. In most developing countries where British aid agencies work, the war was regarded as an imperialist invasion. Those receiving
assistance from aid groups are beginning to confuse British aid with British bombs." - Inset by Gedeon Burrows
Dowden, R. (2004). The state of the African state. New Economy, 11(3), 138-143. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0041.2004.00352.x
When European rulers suddenly decided to take over Africa, they carved it up by drawing lines on the blank map in order to avoid war with each other in the vastness of the African interior. In some areas they had not even set foot on the ground where the lines were drawn. Ethnic groups, local identities and even natural borders such as rivers and mountains, were ignored as the map-makers guessed where watersheds lay between river sources. The imperial powers then moved in, but only slowly established their administration in areas that were not of immediate economic importance. While some African peoples were almost wiped out by the arrival of imperial troops and their colonists, others were barely aware of the arrival – or the departure – of the Europeans. Barely 80 years later, the European rulers left and their casually-created entities were pitched onto the international stage as nation states.
Beneath the surface African societies remained strong. But these ancient societies were boxed up artificially in states that included several ethnicities, divisions that were easily exploited by power hungry politicians...Those that argue that the causes of Africa’s problems lie in the lines on the map that cut across ethnic groups also have to explain why two states that are most clearly based on single ethnicity, Somalia and Rwanda, have experienced the most violent conflicts of all.
With the end of the Cold War western donors were freed from the need to prop up African dictators and aid was switched to Eastern Europe. Meanwhile the old rulers were dying off and a new generation was emerging in Africa that demanded the same freedoms as the West enjoyed and which were now spreading to former Communist countries. The West’s new agenda for Africa was democracy, human rights and the establishment of the free market. Western aid donors regarded
the corrupt top-heavy state-controlled economies of Africa as the problem. They gave their money instead to non-state actors, international and local NGOs, by-passing the bureaucracy and corruption of governments in an attempt to get aid directly to the people. As a result, from the mid-1980s African governments were starved of funds and deliberately impoverished...
We are now entering a third stage of the post-independence state in Africa. Internal and external pressure has made most African governments hold elections. More important, there is a plethora of radio stations and newspapers in most African countries. Mobile phones have enabled far greater communication within countries, even prompting some to ask if the Rwandan genocide would have been possible had there been mobile phones at that time. Today most of the wars have diminished or stopped...The outside world has turned its attention back to governments. The donors’ love affair with NGOs, or ‘civil society’ as it is now called, has not ended but there is a realisation that if nation states are to develop, they must have effective governments. Increasingly western donors are pushing African governments to reform their institutions and establish transparency and accountability in governance.
But there is a dangerous assumption, common in Washington and London, that Africa’s problems have been caused by bad policies in the past and that if the ‘right’ policies can be discovered all will be well. History and African culture – Africa’s way of doing things – are ignored. Solutions to Africa’s problems may look as if they are working for a while but, in the long term, deeper solutions can only come from within Africa. For example, an election – the end point for western peacemaking strategy in Africa – may not be the best long term solution to a deep seated rivalry that has become ethnically based. In Africa, multi-party elections and a winner takes all political system encourages the polarisation of ethnic or religious politics. It also gives the election to those who have the resources to manipulate the process, not necessarily those with the support of the people.
In the end, power in Africa derives not from outside support but from within, from old networks and pre-colonial power systems that lie beneath the surface of modern African states. African leaders may be clever at capturing the goodies that western donors might offer but in the end they are bound by the internal politics of their own countries. Unless outsiders understand the importance of these networks and perceive the underlying internal dynamics of African politics, they are in grave danger of being mislead by their own dreams for the continent – like so many of their predecessors who tried to save Africa. Can the nationals of each African country forge a common idea of what it means to be Nigerian or Angolan, Ugandan or Malian? In too many cases the different is perceived as alien, tolerated as such but never allowed full rights as a citizen...One solution is a stronger, more national civil service in which ability counts for more than ethnicity and which serves all regions equally.
The other is devolution. In three of Africa’s biggest states titanic struggles involving ethnicity or religion or both are currently being fought between the central government and a region or regions. Nigeria, Congo and Sudan will never be united single states again but may survive as confederacies. Their central governments still resist devolution despite years of rebellion and war – nearly 50 years in the case of Sudan. They fear that devolution will lead to break-up, but their violent
resistance to it will almost certainly cause it.
Dowden, R. (2005). To save Africa we must listen to it. New Statesman, 134(4731), 18-20.
But why should Africa’s elite ruling class have served the continent so badly? The Europeans ruled for long enough to destroy or undermine Africa’s own power structures, but too briefly to replace them with other political structures that united the people in nation states. Africans had had no part in creating the states
that were suddenly handed to them at independence along with European-designed flags and national anthems. There was no return to traditional systems of rule because the colonial-created states bore no relation to previous political or economic entities, although at local level, kings and chiefs have retained significant influence. Power was seized from the departing Europeans by those whom the Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe called “the smart, the lucky and hardly ever the best”. They held on to it whatever the cost – even if it meant destroying their country. Robert Mugabe is not untypical of the dictators who ruled in Africa’s first four decades.
But the problem goes deeper than poor leadership, lack of elections and bad policies. It lies in the shape of African states. The Europeans created them by drawing lines on the map, cutting across ethnic groups, cramming them into artificial borders. Most of these European-created entities have at least a dozen languages;
Nigeria has three huge language groups and more than 400 other tongues.
Africans are trapped between their own past and imported western political systems and could not, until recently, integrate the two strands of their history. On the surface, Africa has the trappings of states, governments and institutions recognisable worldwide. Beneath the surface, old networks still rule. Even without those networks and precolonial allegiances, however, Africa’s states do not have administrative structures that reach from the government to the people. Even if governments are committed to delivering books to schools or drugs to clinics, few outside Botswana or South Africa could deliver them. There is simply a lack of human capacity and infrastructure...
Because our image of Africans is one of poverty and victimhood, we also think they are weak. We want to save Africa, so we do not think to understand or listen to it...These mistakes [through this failure to listen to Africa] were made because the government did not bother to study African attitudes....But nothing happens quickly in Africa. Do not expect quick results...It will take decades.
Dowden, R. (2008, April 14). A New Era for Africa. Time International (Atlantic Edition), 171(15).
Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, has always been crucial to the politics of southern Africa. Ruthlessly grabbed by Cecil Rhodes and a ragtag army of white adventurers in the 19th century, it became virtually a European country, the original inhabitants driven from their land and reduced to workers and servants. Although Rhodesia had one of the continent's best-educated African populations, it denied Africans political power. In 1965, after Britain tried to force change on the white settlers, they declared it an independent, white-ruled republic. Black majority rule? "Not in a thousand years," proclaimed the white leader, Ian Smith. That led to a vicious liberation war that lasted until 1979. A British-brokered deal brought an election in 1980, which Mugabe won. For many in Africa, including its leaders, winning the war rather than the election entitled him to rule...While the new rulers accepted the notions of Western-style multiparty democracy, in their hearts the liberation movements did not contemplate that they could lose power at the ballot box.
Dowden, R. (2009). Lives on the line. New Statesman, 138(4959), 34-37.
Much of what constitutes politics in Africa is the manoeuvring of small, capital-based elites within and between their ethnic or religious support bases. Most Africans play no part in their country’s politics, apart from (if they are lucky) voting once every few years. But there is one group that governments have to take into account – the urban poor. These people are vulnerable to the smallest shifts in the cost of living and can take to the streets and cause headaches for those in power. When politics breaks down, they provide the foot soldiers for Africa’s wars. When prices of food and fuel shot up last year, riots broke out in several African cities.
In the longer term, the first of those two commodities – food – may prove critical to Africa’s future. China dominates basic manufacturing globally, and the proportion of its population that works in factories is matched by the numbers of people in rural areas who are ready to come to town and take those jobs. There will be no space in the market for Africa to move from primary producer to manufacturer in the near future. At the same time, China is likely to experience a growing food deficit, as its urban workers seek a better diet. If China’s demand for food imports pushes up prices, Africa could exploit its agricultural potential. With vast unused or underused land resources, it has the capacity to feed China as well as itself.
Dowden, R. (2003). The Brits really are superior. New Statesman, 132(4635).
When US forces went to the Balkans in 1995, the order to the generals was: “No body bags.” As a result, the ordinary soldiers were sent out in armoured vehicles, hiding under helmets and body armour and not allowed any contact with local people. At Christmas these young men, hyped up with the prospect of action, were barely allowed out of barracks. The result was a rash of suicides.
During the same operation, the Brits were deployed as an urban policing force, as they would be in Belfast during the marching season. General Sir Michael Jackson, now Chief of the Defence Staff, consulted his non-commissioned officers and decided that the troops would wear berets instead of helmets, carry their guns pointing downwards, and show their faces and fraternise wherever they could. No one attacked them.
US army generals would never consult with their most junior officers as Jackson did. Once operations start, the NCOs run the British army. Officers issue aims and objectives; NCOs, each in charge of eight men, say how things are to be done. They are picked for initiative and intelligence. The US army is organised on German lines: orders are issued from above and passed down to soldiers who are simply expected to obey.
Britain’s modern army was forged in imperial times. It used shock and awe to establish that empire. At the end of the 19th century, the howitzer and the Maxim gun were the equivalent of the cruise missile and the tankbuster. But, once in control, the British had to rely on awe more than shock to keep the natives down. They deployed ritual and illusion, magnificent parades and uniforms to impress the oppressed. To play the magician needed a more subtle psychological approach. A way had to be found of not letting people forget who was boss while at the same time allowing, even encouraging, them to live in their traditional ways and lead their own lives. That meant understanding and respecting local culture and customs. It is a lesson that the American army, perhaps America itself, has yet to learn.
Dowden, R. (2006). Engaging with Mugabe. The Round Table, 95(384), 283-286. doi:10.1080/00358530600595114
All politics in Africa are local and personal. When African leaders are faced with a choice between appeasing the demands of local politics or international donors, they invariably choose the local. There is also an assumption in Western circles that African politicians would never deliberately impoverish their own countries or their people. If a country is doing well economically, that must boost a ruler’s popularity and power. If it is doing badly, the ruler will surely be kicked out. That too is wrong for much of Africa. In country after country in Africa we have seen rulers destroy their economies rather than leave or share power. As long as Africa’s wealthy and powerful elites and their families enjoy the fruits of office, they do not worry too much about what happens to the rest of the people. As they say in Kenya: ‘‘It does not matter how thin the cow gets if you are the only one on the teat’’...
On the international front the African Union has managed to shrug off criticism that it has not acted on Zimbabwe, despite a fiercely critical report on Operation
Murambatsvina by Anna Tibaijuka for the United Nations.
Between three and four million Zimbabweans have fled the country, mostly to South Africa, where most are forced to do jobs way below their qualifications. Will they go back? Past experience shows that those most successful elsewhere will stay out until they can find equivalent work back home.
People are too busy looking for something to eat to get involved in a political movement. The backbone of the opposition movement, the urban, educated, aspirant professionals, has left the country.
Richard Dowden
Richard Dowden is director of the Royal African Society and author of Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles published by Portobello Books (from www.guardian.co.uk/profile/richarddowden). The Royal African Society publishes the journal African Affairs through Oxford University Press.
Dowden, R. (2003). Our strange friends in the south. New Statesman, 132(4634).For once, Africa’s leaders seem to be speaking for their people. They signed an African Union declaration demanding that war [in Iraq] only be declared with the UN’s blessing.
"It is for Tony Blair, however, that the aid agencies reserve their real anger. His public claim to have been running a humanitarian campaign in Iraq, while doing little
of the sort, could have devastating consequences all over the world for their work. It has been well rehearsed that having the military hand out aid endangers
civilians and aid workers alike. In most developing countries where British aid agencies work, the war was regarded as an imperialist invasion. Those receiving
assistance from aid groups are beginning to confuse British aid with British bombs." - Inset by Gedeon Burrows
Dowden, R. (2004). The state of the African state. New Economy, 11(3), 138-143. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0041.2004.00352.x
When European rulers suddenly decided to take over Africa, they carved it up by drawing lines on the blank map in order to avoid war with each other in the vastness of the African interior. In some areas they had not even set foot on the ground where the lines were drawn. Ethnic groups, local identities and even natural borders such as rivers and mountains, were ignored as the map-makers guessed where watersheds lay between river sources. The imperial powers then moved in, but only slowly established their administration in areas that were not of immediate economic importance. While some African peoples were almost wiped out by the arrival of imperial troops and their colonists, others were barely aware of the arrival – or the departure – of the Europeans. Barely 80 years later, the European rulers left and their casually-created entities were pitched onto the international stage as nation states.
Beneath the surface African societies remained strong. But these ancient societies were boxed up artificially in states that included several ethnicities, divisions that were easily exploited by power hungry politicians...Those that argue that the causes of Africa’s problems lie in the lines on the map that cut across ethnic groups also have to explain why two states that are most clearly based on single ethnicity, Somalia and Rwanda, have experienced the most violent conflicts of all.
With the end of the Cold War western donors were freed from the need to prop up African dictators and aid was switched to Eastern Europe. Meanwhile the old rulers were dying off and a new generation was emerging in Africa that demanded the same freedoms as the West enjoyed and which were now spreading to former Communist countries. The West’s new agenda for Africa was democracy, human rights and the establishment of the free market. Western aid donors regarded
the corrupt top-heavy state-controlled economies of Africa as the problem. They gave their money instead to non-state actors, international and local NGOs, by-passing the bureaucracy and corruption of governments in an attempt to get aid directly to the people. As a result, from the mid-1980s African governments were starved of funds and deliberately impoverished...
We are now entering a third stage of the post-independence state in Africa. Internal and external pressure has made most African governments hold elections. More important, there is a plethora of radio stations and newspapers in most African countries. Mobile phones have enabled far greater communication within countries, even prompting some to ask if the Rwandan genocide would have been possible had there been mobile phones at that time. Today most of the wars have diminished or stopped...The outside world has turned its attention back to governments. The donors’ love affair with NGOs, or ‘civil society’ as it is now called, has not ended but there is a realisation that if nation states are to develop, they must have effective governments. Increasingly western donors are pushing African governments to reform their institutions and establish transparency and accountability in governance.
But there is a dangerous assumption, common in Washington and London, that Africa’s problems have been caused by bad policies in the past and that if the ‘right’ policies can be discovered all will be well. History and African culture – Africa’s way of doing things – are ignored. Solutions to Africa’s problems may look as if they are working for a while but, in the long term, deeper solutions can only come from within Africa. For example, an election – the end point for western peacemaking strategy in Africa – may not be the best long term solution to a deep seated rivalry that has become ethnically based. In Africa, multi-party elections and a winner takes all political system encourages the polarisation of ethnic or religious politics. It also gives the election to those who have the resources to manipulate the process, not necessarily those with the support of the people.
In the end, power in Africa derives not from outside support but from within, from old networks and pre-colonial power systems that lie beneath the surface of modern African states. African leaders may be clever at capturing the goodies that western donors might offer but in the end they are bound by the internal politics of their own countries. Unless outsiders understand the importance of these networks and perceive the underlying internal dynamics of African politics, they are in grave danger of being mislead by their own dreams for the continent – like so many of their predecessors who tried to save Africa.
Can the nationals of each African country forge a common idea of what it means to be Nigerian or Angolan, Ugandan or Malian? In too many cases the different is perceived as alien, tolerated as such but never allowed full rights as a citizen...One solution is a stronger, more national civil service in which ability counts for more than ethnicity and which serves all regions equally.
The other is devolution. In three of Africa’s biggest states titanic struggles involving ethnicity or religion or both are currently being fought between the central government and a region or regions. Nigeria, Congo and Sudan will never be united single states again but may survive as confederacies. Their central governments still resist devolution despite years of rebellion and war – nearly 50 years in the case of Sudan. They fear that devolution will lead to break-up, but their violent
resistance to it will almost certainly cause it.
Dowden, R. (2005). To save Africa we must listen to it. New Statesman, 134(4731), 18-20.
But why should Africa’s elite ruling class have served the continent so badly? The Europeans ruled for long enough to destroy or undermine Africa’s own power structures, but too briefly to replace them with other political structures that united the people in nation states. Africans had had no part in creating the states
that were suddenly handed to them at independence along with European-designed flags and national anthems. There was no return to traditional systems of rule because the colonial-created states bore no relation to previous political or economic entities, although at local level, kings and chiefs have retained significant influence. Power was seized from the departing Europeans by those whom the Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe called “the smart, the lucky and hardly ever the best”. They held on to it whatever the cost – even if it meant destroying their country. Robert Mugabe is not untypical of the dictators who ruled in Africa’s first four decades.
But the problem goes deeper than poor leadership, lack of elections and bad policies. It lies in the shape of African states. The Europeans created them by drawing lines on the map, cutting across ethnic groups, cramming them into artificial borders. Most of these European-created entities have at least a dozen languages;
Nigeria has three huge language groups and more than 400 other tongues.
Africans are trapped between their own past and imported western political systems and could not, until recently, integrate the two strands of their history. On the surface, Africa has the trappings of states, governments and institutions recognisable worldwide. Beneath the surface, old networks still rule. Even without those networks and precolonial allegiances, however, Africa’s states do not have administrative structures that reach from the government to the people. Even if governments are committed to delivering books to schools or drugs to clinics, few outside Botswana or South Africa could deliver them. There is simply a lack of human capacity and infrastructure...
Because our image of Africans is one of poverty and victimhood, we also think they are weak. We want to save Africa, so we do not think to understand or listen to it...These mistakes [through this failure to listen to Africa] were made because the government did not bother to study African attitudes....But nothing happens quickly in Africa. Do not expect quick results...It will take decades.
Dowden, R. (2008, April 14). A New Era for Africa. Time International (Atlantic Edition), 171(15).
Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, has always been crucial to the politics of southern Africa. Ruthlessly grabbed by Cecil Rhodes and a ragtag army of white adventurers in the 19th century, it became virtually a European country, the original inhabitants driven from their land and reduced to workers and servants. Although Rhodesia had one of the continent's best-educated African populations, it denied Africans political power. In 1965, after Britain tried to force change on the white settlers, they declared it an independent, white-ruled republic. Black majority rule? "Not in a thousand years," proclaimed the white leader, Ian Smith. That led to a vicious liberation war that lasted until 1979. A British-brokered deal brought an election in 1980, which Mugabe won. For many in Africa, including its leaders, winning the war rather than the election entitled him to rule...While the new rulers accepted the notions of Western-style multiparty democracy, in their hearts the liberation movements did not contemplate that they could lose power at the ballot box.
Dowden, R. (2009). Lives on the line. New Statesman, 138(4959), 34-37.
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Much of what constitutes politics in Africa is the manoeuvring of small, capital-based elites within and between their ethnic or religious support bases. Most Africans play no part in their country’s politics, apart from (if they are lucky) voting once every few years. But there is one group that governments have to take into account – the urban poor. These people are vulnerable to the smallest shifts in the cost of living and can take to the streets and cause headaches for those in power. When politics breaks down, they provide the foot soldiers for Africa’s wars. When prices of food and fuel shot up last year, riots broke out in several African cities.In the longer term, the first of those two commodities – food – may prove critical to Africa’s future. China dominates basic manufacturing globally, and the proportion of its population that works in factories is matched by the numbers of people in rural areas who are ready to come to town and take those jobs. There will be no space in the market for Africa to move from primary producer to manufacturer in the near future. At the same time, China is likely to experience a growing food deficit, as its urban workers seek a better diet. If China’s demand for food imports pushes up prices, Africa could exploit its agricultural potential. With vast unused or underused land resources, it has the capacity to feed China as well as itself.
Dowden, R. (2003). The Brits really are superior. New Statesman, 132(4635).
When US forces went to the Balkans in 1995, the order to the generals was: “No body bags.” As a result, the ordinary soldiers were sent out in armoured vehicles, hiding under helmets and body armour and not allowed any contact with local people. At Christmas these young men, hyped up with the prospect of action, were barely allowed out of barracks. The result was a rash of suicides.
During the same operation, the Brits were deployed as an urban policing force, as they would be in Belfast during the marching season. General Sir Michael Jackson, now Chief of the Defence Staff, consulted his non-commissioned officers and decided that the troops would wear berets instead of helmets, carry their guns pointing downwards, and show their faces and fraternise wherever they could. No one attacked them.
US army generals would never consult with their most junior officers as Jackson did. Once operations start, the NCOs run the British army. Officers issue aims and objectives; NCOs, each in charge of eight men, say how things are to be done. They are picked for initiative and intelligence. The US army is organised on German lines: orders are issued from above and passed down to soldiers who are simply expected to obey.
Britain’s modern army was forged in imperial times. It used shock and awe to establish that empire. At the end of the 19th century, the howitzer and the Maxim gun were the equivalent of the cruise missile and the tankbuster. But, once in control, the British had to rely on awe more than shock to keep the natives down. They deployed ritual and illusion, magnificent parades and uniforms to impress the oppressed. To play the magician needed a more subtle psychological approach. A way had to be found of not letting people forget who was boss while at the same time allowing, even encouraging, them to live in their traditional ways and lead their own lives. That meant understanding and respecting local culture and customs. It is a lesson that the American army, perhaps America itself, has yet to learn.
Dowden, R. (2006). Engaging with Mugabe. The Round Table, 95(384), 283-286. doi:10.1080/00358530600595114
All politics in Africa are local and personal. When African leaders are faced with a choice between appeasing the demands of local politics or international donors, they invariably choose the local. There is also an assumption in Western circles that African politicians would never deliberately impoverish their own countries or their people. If a country is doing well economically, that must boost a ruler’s popularity and power. If it is doing badly, the ruler will surely be kicked out. That too is wrong for much of Africa. In country after country in Africa we have seen rulers destroy their economies rather than leave or share power. As long as Africa’s wealthy and powerful elites and their families enjoy the fruits of office, they do not worry too much about what happens to the rest of the people. As they say in Kenya: ‘‘It does not matter how thin the cow gets if you are the only one on the teat’’...
On the international front the African Union has managed to shrug off criticism that it has not acted on Zimbabwe, despite a fiercely critical report on Operation
Murambatsvina by Anna Tibaijuka for the United Nations.
Between three and four million Zimbabweans have fled the country, mostly to South Africa, where most are forced to do jobs way below their qualifications. Will they go back? Past experience shows that those most successful elsewhere will stay out until they can find equivalent work back home.
People are too busy looking for something to eat to get involved in a political movement. The backbone of the opposition movement, the urban, educated, aspirant professionals, has left the country.